The Boys Birthday

Preparations start early in our house, we have to remind the boy that it will be his bday in x number of days. He then spends the next few days repeating it will be his bday. He repeats it just as he has done something naughty, like a get out of jail card. Invariably I don’t want to be harsh so I let him off in return for futile promises of good behaviour from him.

Having decided that I should make him a cake in the shape of steam train, I mentally prepare to make a trial cake. Trial cake goes by the wayside as both kids keep me from the kitchen in the evenings due to coughing fits, teething pain, tangles in blankets prompting screaming fits....

The night before the party at 9pm, after a particularly raucous day with the kids, is definitely not the best time to bake a cake. Had to make two square cakes in order to be able to make the engine.

Dark Angel definitely had a hand in tribulations which I encountered when making the cakes. Firstly, the eggs did not crack properly forcing me to fish out egg shells from about a kilo of swamp like cake mixture.

Secondly the oven decided to make ominous rattling noises when I placed the first cake in. The solution to that was simple, I turned the music up louder and waited for the cake smell to waft out of the oven.

Had I forseen that I would be desperately pleading with the ½ kilo of chocolate icing to finally set at 11:30, I would have poured a large gin and tonic at the outset and ordered a cake from a well known suuuupermarket.

As it was, the icing set at midnight, I threw on some smarties, and sloped off to bed.

It was all worth it in the end when the boy, surrounded by his friends, found that the quickest way to enjoy the cake was to be face down in it. Job well done.

Now we just have to tell the boy that it not his birthday anymore and that he has to wait a very long time for presents and cake to be in the same room as him.